General Motors and Chrysler Group LLC, which each received government bailouts, are poised to give salaried workers bonuses of as much as 50 percent of their base pay, Bloomberg reports.

GM is planning to give bonuses to about 26,000 U.S. employees, with managers getting 15 percent to 20 percent of their base pay as a reward. Chrysler is set to give 10,755 salaried workers an average of $10,000, Bloomberg reported, citing anonymous sources.

The payouts come as GM, Chrysler and Ford (which did not take a bailout) prepare for contract talks with the UAW. Ford is also planning to pay bonuses of 10 percent or more of base salary to some salaried staff, the report says.

“The union is going to be very angry about this,” Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., is quoted as saying. “If these kinds of bonuses are paid to salaried workers, then the union’s demands will increase, knowing management can’t claim an inability to pay.”

GM filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009 and accepted $49.5 billion in government aid. Chrysler also filed Chapter 11 of that year, and received $12.5 billion in funds. Both companies are continuing to pay back the loans as their sales and that of the auto industry as a whole bounce back.

A GM spokesperson declined to comment for Bloomberg, and a Chrysler spokesman said such performance awards are “confidential.”

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